Read: Pirates To Be Without Two Key Players
The complexion of the game changed on the hour-mark after defender Innocent Maela was red-carded for denying Christian Saile Basomboli a clear goalscoring opportunity.
To compensate for the loss of Maela at the back, the Buccaneers sacrificed Lorch, who was the bright spark in their attack and brought on defender Ndah.
Almenara, who stood in for head coach Jose Riveiro, who was suspended, explained why they decided to withdraw Lorch.
The Spanish coach says they needed a centre-back and fresh legs to run into space, as they were forced to defend deep in their own half.
"Like I said, before we needed to re-adjust after the red-card of Ino and we needed one centre-back, we needed some fresh legs because we were going to spend time in a low block. So we needed people to run into the space," Almenara said in a post-match press conference.
The Pirates technical team also made a decision in the line-up that raised eyebrows after they played Paseko Mako, a left-footed player, at right-back, with Thabiso Monyane available on the bench.
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Riveiro's right-hand man went on to explain the decision to play Mako at right-back and says it was a tactical decision to unlock Amakhosi's defence with diagonal balls."It was a tactical approach in order to get the advantages in the first pressure line, so we thought getting Mako inside, with the left foot, playing diagonal passes behind the first or the second pressure could give us an advantage," Almenara said.
"Which happened one time if you remember (Terrence) Dzvukamanja running into a space in the first half, in the first minutes, so this is what we were looking for with this approach," he added.
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